2 |. PERCY SLADEN TRUST EXPEDITION, 
streaming out from the ship’s side for the surface-animals, and for the deeper waters we 
attached a 100-lb. lead to our wire cord and, standing in the open starboard gangway, 
clamped on our nets in series as the requisite lengths ran out, in the present case attaching 
them at each 25 fathoms down to 150 fathoms. When the nets reach their depths, the 
ship is allowed to drift for whatever time it is considered desirable to leave them down— 
with us, generally half an hour. The nets being ready and their aluminium cans filled 
with strained water, the operation of clamping each one on and letting it down into the 
sea does not take more than 30 seconds in calm weather. They are then lowered rapidly 
and go down streaming straight up against the wire with their tins reversed ; the latter 
are so light that it generally takes subsequently about 2 minutes before the net streams 
out at right angles to the wire, as it should do. In hauling in the nets, they are of 
course reversed, and, if it be started rapidly for the first 10 fathoms, will all coil 
A Phyllosoma larva from deep water. x 13. 
themselves round the wire, so that no organisms can pass into them during their 
upward course, and the several nets may be removed at leisure as they come up. Of 
course, the method is open to the objection that the bags are not closed on their 
downward course, and that the catches, though mainly from some particular depth, may 
include some additional organisms caught while passing from the surface down to that 
depth. The method of clamping the rings of the nets to the wire instead of attaching 
them by a bridle to a large degree obviates this objection, as the ring and net-opening 
cut the column of water at right angles during their journey downwards. Thus in 
practice the actual number of organisms caught from lesser depths is infinitesimal, and 
all, except the rarer animals (from which no deductions are in any case possible), can be 
eliminated by comparison with the contents of other nets. 
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